Which contrast best describes Rupert Brooke's 'The Soldier' and Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est'?
ABoth poems celebrate dying for one's country in the same idealized terms
BBrooke idealizes death as a gift to England, while Owen shows a gas attack in graphic detail and calls the patriotic motto a lie
CBrooke writes in free verse, while Owen writes a strict sonnet
DBrooke describes trench warfare in detail, while Owen writes about an English garden
Brooke's sonnet imagines 'some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' Owen describes a soldier choking on gas and ends by calling Horace's line 'the old Lie.' Brooke's poem is itself a sonnet, so the form option is reversed.
Question 2 True / False
'Dulce et Decorum Est' endorses the Latin motto that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Owen quotes the line from the Roman poet Horace only to reject it. He tells the reader that if they had seen the gassed man, they would not repeat 'The old Lie' to children 'ardent for some desperate glory.'
Question 3 Multiple Choice
In 'Strange Meeting,' Owen pairs words such as 'escaped' and 'scooped' and 'groined' and 'groaned' at line ends. What is this technique?
AFull rhyme
BPararhyme, in which consonants match but the stressed vowels differ
CInternal rhyme within a single line
DEye rhyme, in which spellings match but sounds differ
Pararhyme keeps the consonant frame and changes the vowel. The effect is a rhyme that feels unresolved and off-key, which suits a poem set in a dreamlike underworld after battle.
Question 4 Short Answer
In a draft preface, Owen wrote: 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.' What does this tell you about how he wanted his poems to work?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Owen wanted readers to feel compassion for the suffering of soldiers rather than admire heroism or find war beautiful. He saw that response of pity as the purpose of the poetry.
The preface explains choices such as graphic imagery and direct address. In the same draft he wrote that the poems are 'not about heroes,' which separates his work from the heroic tradition of war verse.